Planning ahead, hoping for the best

Looking at the pages of my diary for the past week I see they are blank! I must have done something because I couldn’t let a week go by without doing something. I cut the grass, I remember that. I visited my sister who is 87. We often talk about the past. It reminded me that people of her age are a wonderful source of information for writers when researching those early years. She has been a fan of my writing for years, ever since she typed my first novel for me that never saw the light of day. I have thought about resurrecting it. The title was “The Perforated Edge”, and it was about a packet of extremely valuable stamps. Not so sure it would excite readers today though.

Last Monday, my author group, CHINDI, had a photoshoot for their relaunch in May. We have opened the group to anybody, rather than locally based writers. We still intend to work as a group of writers helping each other with promotions and advice about publishing. What we will not be doing is trying to sell each other our books. The website will be focussing on authors and readers as a separate group (if that makes sense). The idea is to allow author members to edit their own pages and update them, while the readers can log in and see what books are on offer and any recommendations from other readers. The website is www.chindi-authors.co.uk.

After the photoshoot, we all adjourned to a local pub for an informal meeting. The main topic of conversation was mainly about the upcoming Chichester Arts Festival in June. We are running a week of ‘workshops’ and fun stuff. The website is www.festivalofchichester.co.uk. Three of us — myself, Helen Christmas and Christine Hammacott, sat down and discussed our participation in the festival week. We are doing a crime seminar where we’ll be talking about what’s involved in writing crime novels. I am more of a cross genre writer rather than specifically crime, but most of my novels have an element of crime in them, so I can at least have some input.

I have another interview on line with Ben Jackson of the Indie Publishing Group. It’s very similar to my other interviews (naturally), but you can catch it at http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/author-interview-michael-parker/.

My YouTube interview with Debbie Mack is at http://bit.ly/2oyRSY8.

As I look at my diminishing sales, I reminded of a conversation on line in one of my author groups about the lack of sales. One theory, which I tend to support, is that it is our own fault; we are giving away too many free books. Readers have no need to buy anymore; they can stock their own libraries with hundreds of free ebooks. If that’s true, it means we are killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The only way now, it seems, to get my books out to a wider reading public is by advertising. I could spend a fortune and ‘hope’ for success. Or I could wait for a massive dose of luck and watch all those readers beating a path to my doorstep. Wish me luck!

Back to the Future

A different week this time: no writing, but a lot of frustration with getting a book jacket image loaded up to Ingram Spark. I’m taking advantage of their free offer to have a hardback copy of my latest book, Where the Wicked Dwell, published. I have to confess that most of the problem was my own lack of experience in working with templates. I eventually worked out the best way to use the template with the image of my jacket. It meant a lot of adjustments using Photoshop, and insertion of guides to ensure I had everything right. I received the e-proofs today and found there is a missing page break after a one of the chapters. It’s ironic because I was extremely careful with the interior file (so I thought), and didn’t expect any errors. I checked the paperback from CreateSpace, and the error isn’t there. The jacket is OK, but needs a little tweaking. Not essential but because I’m going to upload a new interior file, I might as well titivate the jacket.

Yesterday, my wife and I visited the small town where I was born seventy six years ago. It’s a place called Cuckfield, and happens to be in West Sussex, the same county in which we are now living. It was a notion I had when we settled back here. I was born during World War 2. We lived in London and, because of the war, the blitz and constant bombings, pregnant mums were moved out to countryside hospitals to free up the much needed hospital beds in London. So my mother was whisked off to Cuckfield, to a hospital that was once a workhouse. It was the kind of place that, in its early years, would have been a place where “fallen women” were taken to have their offspring. No, my mother wasn’t “fallen”; she was married and had two children when I was born. The hospital has been modernised and exists as a block of flats. It is now a world heritage site. The surrounding area is beautifully landscaped and looked after by a professional company.

I had a bit of luck on my side. Our son, Terry, is a Captain with the airline, EasyJet. One of his pilot friends actually lives in the old hospital. This meant we were able to not just visit the place, but to step inside. Although the hospital is just a block of flats now (apartments for my American readers), it felt odd to think that somewhere in that building, my mother gave birth to me as Hitler was doing his best to bomb us all into submission (not in Cuckfield of course). My mother wanted me to be born on St. Patrick’s Day, and had already decided to call me Patrick in honour of my Irish grandfather. But I had other ideas and turned up a day late, so she called me Michael instead.

Now I look back and see how history has unfolded since that day, and how much, or how little, I have been a part of it. There are a million stories out there, and mine is just a single thread in a whole pattern woven over the years. I should be able to pluck that single thread and watch it vibrate into a story that would grace the pages of any book. But I can’t; I have to stick to thrillers. And that’s the rub; I’m having trouble coming up with a plot. Now, where was I? Ah yes, searching for ideas for my book. I did think of one: it was about this baby who was born….. I don’t know; no-one would believe it.

Just one other thing: my Debbie Mack interview is now available to see on YouTube and Debbie’s website. http://www.debbimack.com/blog/2017/03/29/the-crime-cafe-interview-with-michael-parker/ Wish me luck!

A Chatty Man

The highlight of my week from a literary point of view was the interview I had with Debbi Mack, a New York Times best-selling author, last night. We set this up about two months ago. I learned a little more about Google hangouts when Debbie sent out the invite; took a little while to get going. We chatted for about 35 minutes, which will be edited to about 30 minutes for the YouTube channel. She said some very positive things about my book The Devil’s Trinity, which she is currently reading, but that wasn’t the point of the interview. We talked about my latest release, Where the Wicked Dwell, and why I decided to go with the character, Marcus Blake, who appeared in A Covert War. She could have asked me anything because I would have rattled on until she decided I’d said enough. Anyway, I tried to explain my reasons for re-introducing Marcus Blake, which were purely mercenary: to sell more books.

I think it’s a truism that authors who write series novels will sell more books than someone like me who writes stand-alone books. I did say, however, that by going down this route, I might be letting my standards drop simply because I am being propelled along a route I really don’t want to go. I believe that writing with a single character doesn’t let the writer wander too far away from a channelled path. No doubt there will be writers who disagree with me, but because my books are inspired by world or local events, I find the task of writing to ‘order’ as it were, is rather like being in a straight-jacket, and it saps inspiration. But hey, it sells books!

I’m finding that now, because I have resurrected Conor Lenihan from my thriller, The Eagle’s Covenant. This was in response to comments I’ve received about wanting to see this guy again: something I’d never planned to do. So I’m tackling the problem of how I cast this character in a completely new role and avoid too many similarities between that and what went before. But where will the inspiration come from? What I am considering is actually making this a sequel to the previous book, beginning where that one ended, so that the two books could be seen as one complete story. If I did that, I could publish the two as one book. It’s an interesting thought.

I’m also taking advantage if Ingram Spark’s free promotion and having Where the Wicked Dwell published in hardback. I did this with A Dangerous Game last year. It looks good against my other hardback titles, and Wicked will make a nice addition to the bookshelf.

I’ve had no feedback from the cross-promotions I did last week. I haven’t seen any significant change in the sales of my books, although I am giving away several copies of my latest book every day, and adding about ten subscribers a day to my growing list with Mailchimp. I’ve seen some comments from authors on a particular Facebook group complaining about readers not buying their books, even when they are on sale for $0.99. They say the free copies are being downloaded, but no-one is buying. One author suggested it’s our own fault for giving books away. There are so many free books available now on Amazon, so what’s the point of buying? I’m not sure if that’s true, but I do believe it is necessary to establish yourself as a reliable writer, and hope that readers will be prepared to part with their money to buy your books, and you can only do that by attracting them to your product with giveaways in the beginning. I hope so. Wish me luck!